


The Long Walk Home

by nerdiekatie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allergies, Asthma, Endometriosis, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Menstruation, Platonic Relationships, Telepathic Bond, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Trans Hunk, Trans Male Character, Trans Pidge | Katie Holt, feat. all of team voltron in the background, feat. background hance/klunk, feat. the robot revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 15:50:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10250681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdiekatie/pseuds/nerdiekatie
Summary: What happens when you get your unexpected and unwanted period in space? What happens when your armor doesn't have pockets for your inhaler?On a stealth mission, Pidge and Hunk are stranded and forced to walk to the Green Lion. They're racing against time and their own bodies. Will they make it back?





	1. The Forest

Lance calls missions like these “super spy missions.” As the stealthiest paladins, Pidge and Shiro are usually the usual super spy team. Key word: usually.

Today’s mission is the infiltration of an ion cannon factory, and Hunk is a heavy weapons specialist.

Hunk _hates_ super spy missions.

He tries to focus on the strategy meeting they’re currently having instead of everything that could go wrong (everything. Every step of this not-plan could go wrong).

 “I don’t understand why we don’t just plant explosives in the base while we’re down there and detonate once we’re out?” Keith is saying. “We get the intel and the base goes down. Win-win.”

“Mullet boy’s got a _po-int_ ,” sing-songs Lance. Keith rolls his eyes. 

Hunk shakes his head. “If we set off those cannons, that planet could lose a continent and go into an ice age or something. We need to get the plans for the base so we can steal the cannons and drop them into the nearest sun.”

“We want the natives of this planet to still have a home once all this is over,” Allura interjects, looking at them sternly. Then, she dismisses them.

“That’s all there is. Good luck, paladins.”

Coran’s voice follows them out the door. “You might want to remember to watch out for the local wildlife. It’s spectacular! Why I remember-“

Hunk tries to calm his rolling stomach with thoughts of the Balmerans and the people down on the planet. They deserved lives under the sky, out of factories, free from Galra rule.

Hunk and Pidge walk to Green in silence.

“You okay there, buddy?” Pidge asks. Hunk only gives her a shaky smile.

* * *

 

They’ve timed the mission for this hemisphere’s night cycle. Pidge only has to stun one droid to get access to her computer terminal. Hunk really wishes Pidge could have grabbed what they needed from space, but apparently, she can’t steal what isn’t being transmitted. Hence, the mission.

Pidge can feel Hunk’s uneasy stomach through their bond, so she tries to work fast. It’s just a matter of a few minutes for Pidge to break into the system, grab the blueprints and the files Hunk identifies, plant a virus, and reset the droid for good measure. As far the droid is concerned, it’s been situation normal for the past fifteen minutes. Hunk and Pidge are back in the safety of the woods in another five minutes.

“This is where we left the speeder, right?” says Hunk. It needs to be where they left the speeder, because Green is parked in a dry lakebed sixteen klicks away. Hunk does the math in his head. That’s three hours of walking time- and she can’t get through the trees and she can’t land at the plant, invisible or not and that’s why they took the speeder in the first place, so where is it?

Pidge is frowning at the display from her suit. “That’s weird.” The indicator on her screen is right where she is. On a hunch, she cranes her head back, looking straight up. 

Pidge scans the trees with her eyes. “There,” she says, pointing. The speeder glimmers faintly on a branch ten stories above their heads.

“I’ll rappel up and get the speeder.”

“Alone?” asks Hunk.

“I can’t lift both us. I’m sorry, Hunk. You’ll have to stay down here.”

Pidge fires her bayard. It loops tightly around the lowest branch. Pidge shoots up, sticking a landing in a way that would make an Olympic gymnast proud.  Moving up the tree branch by branch takes some time. She’s almost to the speeder when she sees eyes above her. Pidge has to fish in her memory for what Coran mentioned about the native wildlife. She thinks it’s a peragthar. Probably. It’s twice as big as Hunk, with glossy black eyes and sharp nails on it agile hands. Pidge could probably get around it- she just needs to stun it- but it’s the second one the seals her fate, creeping towards her on this branch while the other drops down behind her. They crowd her off the branch. Pidge falls. She shoots her bayard, catching a branch and slowing her descent. Her heart beats wildly in her chest. She hopes her scream did not wake anyone in the barracks beside the factory. 

Hunk runs to her when she touches down on the ground. “Pidge! Are you alright?”

Pidge is fine. She’s had worse near death experiences, actually. “We need my lion, I think, before we can get the speeder,” she says, not answering his question. “Unless you can shoot that thing from here?” Pidge looks at Hunk hopefully.

Hunk shakes his head. “I’m not Lance. Besides, paladins of Voltron should respect all life.” Hunk is definitely channeling Allura with that last point. He even slips into her accent a little.

Hunk stares up at the speeder and counts back time. Things are not looking good for him. 

“We need to go,” Hunk blurts out.

Pidge agrees. “If anyone decides to investigate that scream...” Pidge trails off, thinking of traveling by foot, at night, through a forest where peragthars and other creatures lurked. She shakes herself.

Pidge is right, but that’s not what Hunk meant. He shakes his head, hating that his implant has run out _now_.

“We have an hour before I can’t walk anymore.”

 “Wait, what?” says Pidge, looking up from checking her compass. They’ll need to walk toward the planet’s east magnetic pole.

“I started my period.”

Pidge realizes suddenly that she hasn’t been feeling Hunk’s uneasy stomach, she’s been feeling his cramps across the bond. Quiznak.

Pidge feels Hunk shut off the bond abruptly. It’s strange, seeing him standing there five feet away and not being able to feel him.

Hunk panics silently, recalling his periods before he started puberty blockers. Endometriosis sucks, and Hunk knows he’s got half an hour before the pain hits, and it’s going to hit bad.

They set off toward the planet’s east magnetic pole.

They stay silent as they make their way through the dark forest, stumbling over undergrowth and slipping on leaves half their size. About twenty minutes into walking, Pidge notices that Hunk is biting his lips. He’s got a bead of sweat rolling down his face. The walk isn’t that strenuous, despite their clipped pace, and the planet is comfortably cool at night.

“Talk to me,” he says, his voice cutting through the call of owl. At least, it sounds like an owl. Whatever it is is probably terrifyingly large and very much not an owl. 

“Um… about what?”

“Anything,” Hunk says pleadingly as Pidge fights her way through a large fern.

“Anything?” Pidge asks, grinning wolfishly. “Training? Your _girlfriend_?”

“Shay isn’t my girlfriend!” Hunk huffs, wincing as he’s forced to grab a tree branch the size of his neck to keep himself from falling in a hole the size of his waist.

“Fine,” Pidge says, “Your boyfriend, then.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, eyes tight at the corners. “Lance isn’t my boyfriend eith-“

Pidge laughs, then sneezes.

“I knew it!” she hisses, but Hunk knows but the victorious expression on her face she would crow if she could.

“We aren’t like that!” Hunk protests, pressing a hand against his abdomen as he stumbles forward. “He’s my best friend.” No matter what Hunk’s mother said, but Hunk kept that to himself.

“Just think about it,” says Pidge. Hunk does, as they navigate the thick jungle landscape. Hunk has to help Pidge scramble up and over a fallen log that’s as tall as he is, then leans against it after he slides down himself.

He leans against the trunk, eyes squeezed tight. They’re wet when he opens them. He pants heavily, wipes his eyes, and signals to Pidge to keep that they should keep walking.

Hunk is nervous, but he’s very rarely hurt, which makes seeing him like this all the worse for Pidge.

“Do you have something for that?” Pidge asks, her shorter legs having to move quickly to catch up even though Hunk is moving slower than usual.

Hunk shakes his head. On Earth, he would have gotten a new implant and avoided this whole mess. But out here, he’s been playing the waiting game for the hormones in his implant to run out. It’s not like he brought supplies _anyway_.

“It looks-“ Pidge sneezes again- “bad,” she says tentatively,

“Yeah, well. If I was able to take something when I first noticed, I wouldn’t be this bad,” he says, thinking longingly of painkillers.  

“I hate this,” Pidge says, suddenly. “I feel useless.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Hunks says, trying to comfort her. Pidge thinks that ridiculous Hunk is the one hurting. He proves her point when he continues, “It’s _my_ uterus that decided play kickball with my insides. Just keep talking to me. I need to think about anything _but_ that.”

Pidge talks to Hunk about their garden. It’s a little thing, but Pidge has been trying to find one-ness with it. She’s supposed to be the Guardian of the Forest, after all. She thinks that the night blooming flowers that climb the trees towards the light of the double moons above would make a nice addition. It’s a shame they can’t pick any of them now, but maybe they could after they free the planet. She starts speculating on how they could mimic moonlight in the garden room if they need moonlight to bloom, then she coughs. And realizes her chest has been getting tighter.

“Hunk,” she gasps out through a particularly difficult sneeze and cough at the same time. “I’m in trouble.”

Hunk looks at her, and Pidge can tell he’s holding in at least one cry of pain.

“You know how allergies are technically an immune overreaction and not actually poisons?”

Hunk’s eyes grow wide.

“My suit isn’t filtering,” Pidge says, “and my inhaler is in Green.” She supposes this means she can’t put any of the plantlife in their garden after all.

Altean technology doesn’t crackle, but they hear their headsets come to life nonetheless.

“Hunk, Pidge, come in.”

Pidge is trying to hold in a cough, equal parts adorable and distressed with her cheeks puffed out, so Hunk swallows his scream.

“We’re here, Shiro.”

He wants to know why they’re nearly an hour late. Hunk explains the speeder-jacking peragthars, and would explain that Pidge is in danger of not being able to breathe but Pidge stops him with a look.

“This is a stealth mission,” Pidge explains after Shiro gets off comms. “If you told them, they’d come to pick us up, and none of the other lions have cloaks. Besides,” she says, determination in every pained line on her face, “I can make it if you can.” She marches forward.


	2. The Tunnel

Pidge’s eyes itch and water, but she knows better than to rub at them, especially without knowing what’s on her gloves.

Pidge is a nervous babbler by nature. It’s not easy to keep up the chatter when each breath feels like inhaling sand, but if it makes the both of them feel better, she might as well. She keeps an eye on the sky as they go. At this rate, it’ll take another two hours to get back to Green, and that’s without significant delays. In the meantime, she tosses around a few ideas for Hunk’s lion. Hunk recruited Pidge to improve Yellow’s accuracy. Yellow’s canon is a lot like Hunk’s bayard. They both lay down heavy, widespread shots, and Hunk worries that one of the others is going to caught in friendly fire one day. Pidge thinks Hunk is being a little dire, but working with him is always fun. Hunk makes a couple of his own suggestions through clenched teeth.

Suddenly, Hunk stops. Pidge, who has fallen a few steps behind him by now- not that Hunk minds. It’s probably easier for her following in his wake- runs into his back. 

“Do you hear that?”

He turns around. His face is shiny and pale. Pidge shakes her head. They hide behind one of the fully grown trees that counts as underbrush on this planet.

Hunk looks around cautiously. Pidge tries to control her harsh breathing. Even surrounded by the noise of the dark forest, it seems loud. Soon, even though it seems like forever, Hunk sees two droids on something like a deer trail, except it’s wide enough to be a two lane highway. Hunk only sees them because of the dappled moonlight shining off their surfaces.

If the droids weren’t well, droids, they might have gotten away. Unfortunately, the droids are equipped with infrared scanners, and the droids make a path straight for the paladins. One drops to the forest floor before it can even reach the paladins, and Pidge fries the other’s circuits as it swings around the tree’s trunk.

“Good job,” Hunk tells Pidge as she turns off her display and pulls the head of her bayard back to her. She kneels beside the drone she electrocuted, using her wrist light as she opens a hatch to peer inside. She shakes her head.

“It’s dead,” she says,” but at least it didn’t get send a signal back to the base.” Hunk follows behind to where the other one lies in a pile of leaves.

Pidge falls first. Hunk knows that, because he felt alarm at the sight of her and the forest floor beneath her disappearing just before he felt the horrible jolt of surprise that only comes when your foot lands on air instead of ground. First, alarm, then surprise, then alarm again as he tumbles forward. So logically, Hunk must have fallen second even though everything seems to happen in the same moment. He also must have landed second, and it must have only been by luck that he lands solidly on his left side instead of on Pidge.

He hears Pidge groan as he sits up, wiggling his toes and doing some quick stretches. He can’t see much of her in the dark, just the white of her armor and its blue lights. He turns on his wrist lamp. Pidge flinches when it shines in her eyes.

“I’m alright,” she says. “You?” Hunk has probably bruised his shoulder and hip, but nothing is dislocated, sprained, or broken, so he is as alright as he can be. He turns his lamp up to where they fell- it only looks like a few meters, but it is still too far to climb, and Pidge’s bayard can’t bear the weight of both of them. He carefully stands, and his light falls on something silver.

Pidge lets out a quick shout and scrambles to it. The droid fell with them. Pidge turns on her own wrist lamp to look over it, quickly immersing herself in it.

Hunk has to call her name twice before she hears him.

“Look.” He gestures with his wrist lamp. Its light doesn’t reflect of a wall but continues to disappear into the distance. “We’re not in a hole. We’re in a tunnel.”

Hunk looks at the downed droid speculatively. “Could you make it work for us?”

Pidge looks conflicted.

“I _could_ make it work for us,” she says. Hunk thinks it’s a strangely hesitant answer from Pidge. He’d have expected something cockier.

“Is this about Rover?” Hunk asks.

Pidge stares at the droid. Hunk can’t read her face, but when she speaks, her voice is defeated.

“Because I had Rover, they were able to attack us. And Rover,” she says, trailing off, “he died for me. And I’m not sure I gave him a choice.”  She sighs. “I don’t want that to happen again.”

“I understand,” says Hunk, “but if you can get that droid to work for us, it can scout ahead for a way out, and for whatever made this tunnel. I’d hate to run into something down here.” He suppresses a shudder, trying not to imagine what a fox the size of the tunnel would do to him and Pidge.

Pidge looks at Hunk. Her mouth is a set, straight line, but her eyes have a strange glint to them in the darkness.

“You might hate me for this,” she says and begins to work on the droid. Hunk uses his wrist lamp to illuminate the droid so Pidge can use both hands and her display. It only takes a few minutes, then the droid starts up with a soft beep, casting a soft blue glow as it floats at Pidge’s eye level.

Hunk takes another look. Blue? Rover had been green.

Pidge babbles nervously at the droid. “Hi. I know we knocked you out and fried your buddy, but I also made you your own boss now, so if you could do us a favor and find us a safe way out of these tunnels, I’d appreciate it.”

The droid flies off down the tunnel without acknowledging that Pidge spoke at all. Pidge’s shoulders slump. Without the droid’s help the tunnel is still the only way forward, so she waves Hunk on and starts a dejected walk down the tunnel. Hunk can’t even appreciate the smoothness of walking in the tunnel compared to the forest floor, because his mind keeps replaying Pidge saying _I made you your own boss_.

Hunk bends over with his hands on his knees, trying to breathe away the pain. Pidge bends over, too, wheezing with every inhale and exhale. She thinks the cold air in the tunnel is making it even harder to breathe.

“Pidge,” he says, eventually. “Did you make that droid _autonomous?_ ”

“I told you you might hate me,” she mutters over her shoulder, straightening up as she sets off back down the tunnel at mid-speed pace driven by necessity and tempered by pain. Hunk follows.

“That droid could be headed back to the Galra right now!” Hunk say anxiously. The fingers on his right hand fidget.

“I know!” Pidge snaps breathily. “But if we’re doing this for everybody in the universe, that includes the droids, too! They’re not just computers and programming, they can _think_. And if we just _use_ them without giving them a choice, we’re no better than the Galra!”

They walk on in stony silence after that, wrist lamps sweeping of the twisting walls of the tunnels. They take increasingly frequent breaks from walking, bent over, hands on his knees. Hunk gasps during these, eyes clenched tightly together, for a few seconds before he presses his lips and moves on again. Pidge thumps her chest with her fist, hacking all the while. Hunk is sweating and by the light of their wrist lamps, he can tell that Pidge is, too. Pidge has the rasp of her breathe as a soundtrack to Hunk’s steady loss of color. Neither of them is in a position of help the other, and Hunk worries that this will end poorly.  

Finally, they come into a chamber. Hunk looks in dismay at the two tunnels before them. They have finally hit a fork in the road. Pidge shines her wrist lamp around the chamber.

“Look,” she says, “no bedding, no food or remains, no waste. It’s abandoned.” She’s right. The chamber is utterly empty save for the two of them. Hunk takes a moment to desperately hope that the tunnels ahead of them are similarly abandoned.

They stand in front of the tunnels. There’s absolute silence, no dripping water, or whooshing wind, or anything else Hunk has read in novels or seen in movies to distract him from the choice in front of them.

Left or right?

Left or right?

Pidge is inspecting the mouth of the right-hand tunnel, when a light whirring enters the chamber. As it gets steadily louder, a blue light appears in the distance.

 _The droid_ , Hunk thinks, mouth dry. Running ahead to pull Pidge out of the way. He and Pidge roll into the dirt as the droid flies into the chamber alone.

Alone? Hunk listens hard for the sound of other droids, or Galra soldiers, or Galra soldiers on speeders, but he doesn’t hear anything.

Pidge pops her head up from under Hunk’s arm.

“Buddy! I knew you’d come back!” She springs up, hugging the droid. It floats midair as she chatters at it like a long lost friend, coughing all the while. The droid beeps back. Pidge grins at Hunk.

“They say go left.”


	3. The Ravine

They emerge at the bottom of a deep ravine, stepping from packed clay into river bottom silt. Even this far into the dry season, the silt is soft, and their feet sink. Hunk turns off his wrist lamp, hurrying out of the eerie shadows that line the edges of the ravine and into the center, where blessed, clear, unobstructed moonlight alights.

Pidge stays by the tunnel exit, and Hunk listens with interest (and suspicion) as she talks to Buddy the droid.

“Are you sure you won’t come with us?” Pidge asks Buddy the droid. Buddy the droid beeps, and by the downcast look on Pidge’s face, it’s an affirmative.

“Okay. I’ll miss you.” Buddy beeps again and flies up and up and over the walls of the ravine until her blue light disappears. Pidge sighs wistfully, walking out to where Hunk stands.

She turns her wrist to bring up her display. The map shows Pidge’s location relative to her lion’s, interposed over a rough landscape. Hunk can see that while the ravine takes a wide, detouring berth around the plant. Hunk thinks of how this ravine would be a raging river in the wet season and thinks building the plant far away was a good idea. And directly ahead, to the East is-

“Green!”  Pidge squeezes her eyes shut and pokes out her tongue in concentration. When she opens them, her eyes are shining happily. “She’s on her way!” Pidge announces. Hunk thinks she almost got a bounce in her step as they stride eastward.

After the darkness of the tunnels, Hunk basks in moonlight the way a cat would in a sunbeam. This should be the easy part of their journey. But for small pieces of flotsam and jetsam that they can easily walk around by the light of the moons, the way is straight and clear, and even better, Green is on her way to meet them.

But with the tunnel and Buddy the droid, Hunk has forgotten that they’re in dire straits.

He abruptly reaches out and grabs Pidge’s shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, just stands eerily still.

“Hunk?” Pidge asks.

“I can’t see,” he says, pained. “I’ve got black spots in my eyes.” It’s from the pain, Pidge knows, but they have to keep walking, and Pidge can’t carry him. She ends up guiding him around the flotsam and jetsum that lay on the floor of the ravine, but as they continue it becomes increasingly clear that they both need to rest, and soon. Pidge’s head is both throbbing and swimming and she nearly makes both of them fall over.

But that seems inconsequential when Hunk gasps, staggering a few steps away. It’s all the warning she has before he bends over doubled, hands on his knees, vomiting into the silt. Pidge watches, helpless to do anything as he falls forward, hands and knees in the silt, and keeps spitting up bile.

“Quiznak,” he moans in between heaves. Pidge sees his throat convulse as he tried to stop spewing. She doesn’t want to know whether or not he was swallowing anything down or just trying to catch his breathe. Hunk flops over to the side when he’s done, trying to regulate his breathing through his nose.

Pidge is looking at Hunk, so it’s only luck that she sees the shadow. It’s been a cloudless night- one more reason to thank the dry season. She sees the shadow and looks up to see a giant bird bearing down on them.

She shoves at Hunk roughly. “GO!” she yells, pushing at him until they’re both running for the canyon’s edge.

The bird screeches angrily above them at its prey’s departure. It dives down, extended talons scrapping off the rock above them, showering them with pebbles. They dive into a cave in the cliff face. Hunk hopes that this is just as abandoned as the tunnels. At very least, he hopes it’s only housing one of those weird hibernating fish. Pidge’s breathing is whistling now.

Hunk’s helmet comes on.

“Shiro,” Hunk says before Shiro even speaks. “We are currently hiding from a giant bird. Please advise.”

Allura cuts in before Shiro can. “Hunk, Pidge, it is vital that you do not harm that bird. The perathinya are vital to the planet’s ecosystem. And they’re endangered.”

“We’re endangered!” Hunk hisses back. Fear of discovery keeps his voice down even though it feels more appropriate to scream.

“Engage only if necessary,” Shiro says sternly. “We’ll stay on comms to monitor the situation. Over and out.”

On Earth, this would have been one of Hunk’s nightmares. Now, Hunk’s nightmares are full of Zarkon, but this is still up there on Hunk’s list of No Good, Very Bad, Horrible, Terrible Missions.

“We have to run,” Pidge gasps.  Of course Pidge was listening to comms, too. “I can do this,” she grits out and breaks into a wobbly, zig-zagging sprint out of the cave ahead of him. Hunk follows at her heels, not even sure if they’re running in the right direction, visually impaired as he is. The pera-whatever swoops down a few more times, scraping the rock face. Hunk’s face stings with the small rocks that fall down on them, but they’re too small and too close the ravine wall for a bird that size to get close.

Unfortunately, the bird comes to the same conclusion.

Hunk hears a _thunk_ behind them and turns back with dread. The bird is now chasing them on foot, hopping as fast as it can to Hunk and Pidge running before them. It screams its fury again and Hunk sees through the black spots in his vision that it has teeth.

“Faster, Pidge!” he yells, scooping up her elbow to set the pace for her short little legs. She wrenches it away, but keeps the faster pace.

The bird flutters its wings behind them to hop faster, and Pidge almost falls over in the sudden gust of wind.

Green comes into view, flying down the ravine at speeds that would have been impossible through the dense forest. Green touches down on the ravine floor, running for their pursuant. The bird sees a competitor nearing its prey and leaps into the air, taking flight and trying to come at Green from the tail, but Green jumps, twisting in midair to bat the bird away. The bird goes careening into the dirt.

It gets up, and Hunk hates the princess for the entire moment he’s _glad_ the thing _trying to eat them_ isn’t hurt. It spreads its wings, screeching a challenge. Then it goes headlong for Green, only to be head-butted in the chest by the giant mechanical lion. The bird goes skittering back.

Green lowers herself into an aggressive crouch, a growl rumbling in her throat. The bird backs off, closing its wings and ruffling its feathers before launching back into the sky. Green watches it go with satisfaction in her glowing eyes. Hunk waits until its silhouette disappears before breathing a sigh of relief.

Green creeps to where her paladin is pressed against the ravine wall.

“Good girl,” she breathes.

Green cocks her head before crouching to lower the ramp into her cockpit. Pidge pats the console when she eases into the pilot seat. Hunk hauls Pidge into the cockpit, easing her into the pilot seat. She points to a panel, and Hunk tears through the bag he finds inside, throwing her inhaler to her.

Pidge’s hands are shaking as she fumbles with it, taking two quick puffs. They don’t have time to wait for it to work. Pidge takes off from the canyon with her hands still shaking, her head still swimming, and her breathe still whistling in her chest.

Green’s cloaking lets them get into the atmosphere and to the castleship undetected. They pull into the hangar. Pidge slumps bonelessly in her pilot seat, and Hunk white knuckles the back of it in an effort to stay upright. Internally, Hunk is screaming, _Knock me out! KNOCK ME OUT!_ He holds it back in favor of getting something done.

He turns on his comms. “We need medical care in Green’s hangar.”

The team breaks out into babble.

“Fine,” Pidge says. “Asthma. Hunk.”

“Those are mutually exclusive statements,” says Keith. He’s worried, Pidge can tell, because he’s clipping off his words tightly, no hint of his Texas drawl. Still, he’s ignoring the important part.

“Hunk,” Pidge insists breathily, gesturing angrily at him, but Hunk has already turned off his comms.

“I’m fine for now,” Hunk says. Pidge disagrees. In the light of Green’s interior, Hunk’s pinched, sweaty face is grey. She indignantly waves her arms some more.

“Let’s get you outside the Lion.”

Hunk and Pidge lean on each other for the short walk outside Green. Pidge wraps an arm around three quarters of Hunk’s waist, leaning her head onto his breastplate. The molded corner of it presses into Pidge’s temple, but Pidge finds comfort there. Hunk rests his hand on Pidge’s shoulder, putting as much of his weight on her as he dares. Outside Green, they more or less collapse, leaning heavily against Green’s front paw and each other. Hunk situates himself so he can lean his head between his knees, and Pidge leans on his shoulder, thumping her chest as she struggles to breathe.

Everyone bursts through the hangar doors at a sprint. Coran slides to his knees beside Pidge and holds up a mask for her to breathe into. Pidge holds it to her face with one hand, gesturing to Hunk with the other.

Shiro kneels down and puts his hand on his shoulder. “What do you need?” In response, Hunk just looks at Pidge where she leans against him. Whatever machine Coran brought for her is nearly silent, and Hunk can still hear the whistle of her taxed lungs. She looks very small with the mask over her face, even though she’s agitated enough to focus her glazed stare onto him.

“We’re taking care of her,” Shiro says, “What do _you_ need?”

“A sedative would be nice,” Hunk relents, “but failing that, I’ll take a painkiller and a heating pad.” He sees understanding dawn in their faces. Lance runs off to get them. Thank the engineering gods.

“How did the mission go?” Allura addresses Hunk, though not unkindly. Pidge waves her wrist around in response.  

“We got the data,” Hunk says. He begins to explain where the finished ion cannons are, and how to avoid discharging them when they begin their mission in the morning. He hates that morning’s so close. Pidge needs to activate her virus if their plan is going to work, and Hunk needs to be there to make sure that nothing go wrong. That’s not much recovery time and even less sleep.

Lance comes back with a heating pad, an analgesic, _an actual sedative_ , and a clean change of clothes. Lance is Hunk’s hero. He’ll have to tell him more often. He takes the heating pad (it’s cordless, and not exactly the height of Altean technology, but it’s nothing short of a miracle to Hunk right now) and twice the recommended dose of the analgesic, but waves away the rest.

“What are you trying to prove, Hunk?” asks Lance.

“We have to go back out there,” says Hunk.

“Hunk, I couldn’t have asked more of any of the paladins, and I wouldn’t ask anyone in this much pain to do anything but _rest_ ,” Shiro says.

Lance hands him the sedative again. Hunk isn’t fluent in Altean, but after more than a year in space, he knows enough to read the label on the sedative. It shouldn’t interact with the analgesic, and that’s good enough for him. He’s not even sure he would care if it did, at this point. Hunk stabs the hypospray into his neck with enough force to bruise.

Pidge looks like she’s already drifting off from exhaustion, her breathes coming a little easier.

“I’ve got her,” Shiro says. He scoops her and her breathing machine up easily. “Go rest, Hunk.” Keith and Lance each grab and arm and help Hunk to his room.  There are small green dots in front of his eyes, but it’s an improvement. Hunk remembers collapsing into bed heavily. Lance drags a blanket over him, and Keith comes over with a water pouch.

“Hunk,” Keith says, “You need to drink this while the sedative kicks in. Little sips so you don’t throw up. Please. You’re dehydrated.” He accepts the water.

Lance pets his hair as he falls asleep, humming gently. It’s nice.

**Author's Note:**

> Then Hunk and Pidge rest up and the mission goes forward.  
> The castleship has the ability to synthesize human hormones, and Hunk gets a working implant again. He won't have to worry about this happening again for years.  
> Pidge fixes up her armor so she can manually force it to filter her environment.  
> Buddy did NOT like spending a night or two alone in a forest and comes back to be Pidge's friend.


End file.
